Pangolin, a database management system developed at SberTech, undergoes a release cycle approximately four times a year. Each release involves integrating new features, bug fixes, and refactoring, resulting in a significant volume of new code. Because the product is large, the release process typically spans two weeks.
To ensure stability, the team employs a comprehensive set of Quality Gates. These include standard unit tests, various regression test suites, and checks for compatibility across different operating systems. The process also covers verification of updates from previous versions, including rollback scenarios and testing with different license types.
The role of the release QA engineer, often filled by a QA lead, is critical for managing this workflow. Responsibilities include coordinating the testing cycle, analyzing test failures, addressing bugs, and resolving flaky tests. The process concludes with a final run of all checks to generate the definitive release reports.
